So much to say today. I'll start with: My house smells like a proper home, which means the house smells like supper. It smells as if real adults live here. Sometimes I forget that the domesticity I cherish is indeed mine. I've created and sustained this warmth, I've feathered my nest wherever I've lived, and I will continue to do so.
I can't stop thinking of Deirdre McQuade. I don't know her well; I went to Bryn Mawr with her younger sister, Pam, and Pam and I have a mutual friend in Elaine. But Deirdre is a bit of a legend: beautiful, so smart, lovely, deeply kind, a devout Catholic. She, like Rebecca Weidner, is the kind of person who makes me believe in God, capital "G," God. She is the most sterling example of a Roman Catholic that I may have ever encountered. Somehow, because she's so insanely intelligent and well educated, her devotion to Catholicism seems all the more awe-inspiring.
Beautiful Deirdre is dying tonight, Stage 4 breast cancer. She has tried to find such a deep well of joy and hope, she has asked for prayers and she has offered them, she has tried to raise up this suffering for all of us on unwashed masses gathered on the sidelines, cheering her on via Facebook.
Deirdre, how appropriate, is perishing during Holy Week.
* * * *
And last night, I was accepted (voted?) into the Presbyterian Church (USA), and I'll say that my joy at making this official, after three-and-a-half years at Lower Valley Presbyterian, surprised me. I shared my faith journey, I guess you could call it. I shared how I ended up on their doorstep. What I realized is how engaged I am with my faith, how I've walked so close alongside it all these years, not as a cultural curiosity or artifact, but as a living thing, something to be pushed, pulled, grappled with, held up to the light, examined. And I am glad for it. My faith has enriched my life, and I can only hope that it has made me useful in this world. PC (USA) is reminding me that the pew is optional, but getting outside and flinging my arms open wide to the world and its suffering, right there, on 513, that's essential. Because otherwise, what's the point?
Comments